Findlawless.com and Economic Illiteracy
Joanne Mariner brushes off her obviously unused calculator today to bring us a tale of AIDS, America, and numbers:
Here are some numbers to consider: 14 million, 35.9 billion, and one.The first figure is an estimate of the number of people who will die of AIDS and other treatable diseases over the course of the coming year, most of them in the poor countries of the developing world.
The second figure represents the combined 2002 profits, in dollars, of the ten biggest pharmaceutical companies, according to Fortune magazine's annual analysis of America's largest businesses.
The third figure corresponds to the number of countries that, last Wednesday, November 19, voted against a U.N. resolution on access to drugs in global epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The resolution emphasized that the failure to deliver lifesaving drugs to millions of people who are living with HIV/AIDS constitutes a global health emergency. 167 countries voted in favor of the resolution. The single vote against it was cast by the United States.
Here's a number for Ms. Mariner: zero.
That figure represents the number of her statistics that are remotely relevant to her ensuing argument that the U.S. should weaken its stance on TRIPS and allow generic copies of its drugs to be sold outside America.
Forget what your opinion on the matter is: I withhold mine since I honestly admit I don't have the information to make a decision. Ms. Mariner doesn't give that to you either. Some relevant figures she might look for, though:
- Unknown: The number of AIDS/HIV deaths that would have occurred throughout the developing world without effective HIV treatments coming to market. This is important because her other figures don't tell you...
- Unresearched: The number of the top ten drugs companies listed by Ms. Mariner who manufacture the anti-HIV drugs in question--after all, why lump in companies not in that line of business?
(And, incidentally, her bottom-line profit number is meaningless anyway without knowing the investment that generates that return, a figure that she might have gotten without much trouble. If that number is a low-to-middling profit margin, well, investors might start moving their money into frozen yogurt franchises. Note that she seems to know this, since the title of her piece mentions profit margins, but nowhere else does.) - Unresearched: The average return on investment made by the top ten (well, I'm using her cutoff, assuming she has a reason) companies pursuing anti-HIV drugs projects to date, including all projects (or investments in third-party companies) that have failed to produce effective results.
- 166: The number of countries who, because free-market U.S. health care purchases provide a greater percentage of the necessary profit margin to recoup for drug development, benefit from the free-rider problem that thus results, and yet voted for the UN resolution mentioned by Ms. Mariner
- Uncountable: The number of people who die in the next epidemic if, at present, the rate of return on the HIV drugs is low or negative and thus discourages drug companies from investing.
I know, I know. You're saying, "Tony, this is just one of your screeds on free-market capitalism, and yes, we know her numbers are irrelevant but you wouldn't support her anyway." Wrong. I'm actually quite open to the idea that perhaps intellectual property protections have to be refit to match the needs of a global marketplace. After all, the same argument I make against the RIAA on file-sharing holds just as well against drug companies. If they're making unjust profits because of government-granted monopolies on intellectual property, then by all means, we should change the rules and spur innovation rather than protect the overfattened pockets of existing corporate structures.
But Ms. Mariner, you can't get there from here on a set of statistics that would be a failed answer to a third-rate LSAT problem. You write for FindLaw, a site which is read by lawyers, law students, and those who would like to be law students. You owe it to them to be better in your use of statistics and logic. At least, that's what they keep telling us it means to 'think like a lawyer' here in law school.
Comments
Posted by: martin | November 25, 2003 5:02 AM
Posted by: martin | November 25, 2003 5:08 AM
Posted by: A. Rickey | November 25, 2003 8:41 AM
Posted by: martin | November 25, 2003 9:19 AM
Posted by: A. Rickey | November 25, 2003 1:38 PM
Posted by: falconred | November 25, 2003 2:15 PM
Posted by: S | November 25, 2003 2:53 PM
Posted by: A. Rickey | November 25, 2003 2:56 PM
Posted by: Matt | November 25, 2003 3:57 PM
Posted by: martin | November 27, 2003 4:26 AM
Posted by: A. Rickey | November 27, 2003 4:33 AM
Posted by: Susan R | January 10, 2006 7:03 AM
Posted by: mac | February 8, 2006 5:02 AM